


I'm lost in a German forest

by AGlassRoseNeverFades



Category: Original Work
Genre: Cross-Posted on Reddit, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Horror, Implied Cannibalism, M/M, Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Monsters, Supernatural Elements, That part's somewhat left open to interpretation, Witchcraft, nosleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-08-16 03:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20185219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AGlassRoseNeverFades/pseuds/AGlassRoseNeverFades
Summary: I think I got away from whatever attacked my group and chased us.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Cross-posting](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cocj5x/im_lost_in_a_german_forest_i_think_i_got_away/) this here from r/nosleep. In case you didn't know, the conceit on that subreddit is that all stories posted to it are true, generally told from the perspective of the person it happened to. Here on AO3, I'll tell you for free that this is fiction. ;)

My family belongs to one of those big megachurches. You know the kind I mean—huge, modern, more money than God, the sort that people like Joel Osteen made famous. (And no, it’s not his, much as my mom adores him. Sadly for her, we live in the wrong state.) We’ve been going almost since it opened about ten years ago, and every summer they take people on mission trips overseas. This year’s Germany, and it’s the first time I got to go. My parents had been saving up for years to send me, almost as diligently as they’ve saved for my college fund. I had no idea about this before the announcement; they apparently wanted to surprise me with an extravagant graduation present. I wasn’t thrilled about the “missionary” part, but visiting any part of Europe was a dream come true. I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth and risk seeming “ungrateful” for a really sweet present I never expected from them. They were paying for this and my school next semester and the last thing I wanted was to annoy them into changing their minds about either.

One thing I noticed quickly was that we weren’t proselytizing to anyone, for which I was grateful. We visited cathedrals and did some volunteering with local religious groups around the city a few times, but that’s about it. I wondered what the point was in going to a predominantly Christian country in the first place. Apparently the answer was just “sight-seeing and getting plastered,” with Jesus as an excuse for…I don’t know, probably tax write-offs or something. Now I knew why so many people signed up this year. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised if the youth pastors made a point in mentioning the legal drinking age here when they were looking for customers, I mean, _volunteers._ Or maybe I’m just cynical. I already felt like an outsider as one of the few teens who never went to youth group or did any volunteering for the church before, just went to the standard weekly sermons with my parents. Even before we got here people separated themselves into little friend cliques I felt no part of.

The organizers put us in groups of about eight or so with the intent that we would generally stick together for most outings, which all the more hammered in the feeling that this was an extended version of every school field trip I’ve ever been on but with more alcohol and praying. This last Wednesday, the leader of our group, Carl, announced that he and the other organizers had talked and decided we’d all earned a well-deserved break from the good work we’d been doing, and called for a vote on what our group should do with the time off this weekend. I was the only one who laughed, which definitely should have clued me in that it was not a good idea to then open my mouth and say, “A break? Are you serious? It’s practically just a fancy vacation already.” I think one girl in the group, Sarah, might have been hiding a smile behind her hand, but everyone besides her and Carl just looked irritated with me.

“That’s terrific, Matt! I’m glad you feel that way! Serving the Lord is an exciting and joyous experience, I agree.” Carl spoke in that overly cheerful tone I’ve come to associate with youth ministers who don’t like the “tricky” questions you’re asking them about the Bible but don’t want to lose their “fun dude” rep by telling you outright that you’re a sinner for doubting and you’d better just keep your head down and your mouth shut. I took the hint this time and didn’t correct his assumption. I kept my head down and my mouth shut for the rest of the meeting, even biting back the groan that wanted to escape when the majority decided on _camping,_ of all things. Maybe between pints we were supposed to be harassing the locals about salvation every time we visited the biergartens, and as the only one who’d missed the memo, this was my divine retribution for not participating enough. To add to my dread, Carl asked me to stay behind for a minute once the meeting wrapped up.

“Hey there, jokester! We haven’t had a chance to talk much since we got here. Heck, I think those must have been the most words I ever heard you string together earlier!” I had nothing to say to this. He was probably right. “I just want to see how you’re fitting in with everybody.” Christ, this really was a continuation of high school, wasn’t it? “You know, this campout should be a good team-building exercise. You’ll get to know your groupmates better, make some friends and…I’m sorry, bud, but could you at least look at me a little when I’m talking to you?” For the first time, Carl sounded a little annoyed. Anxiety churned in my stomach.

“I am looking at you,” I told him flatly. My gaze hadn’t left his shirt once since he started talking. I heard him sigh, and somehow it sounded exactly like the one Mom and Dad make when I fail their requests for eye contact too. He even tried to put his hand on my shoulder, but was good enough to drop it when he saw me flinch. He said some more pandering crap I nodded along with and let me go a short while later, I suspect more disappointed with how that talk had gone than I was.

Camping didn’t seem so bad anymore by the time we left on Friday. The most time I ever spent outdoors willingly before was in a swimming pool, but German forests were supposed to be famously beautiful. They ought to be, as the setting for so many fairy tales I’d heard growing up. I wasn’t disappointed. The view truly was, to put it lightly, _spectacular._ Trees taller than any I’d ever seen before, their sprawling branches overlapping so heavily in places that I could hardly see the dappled sunlight filtering through the gaps. It wasn’t the infamous Black Forest, but I could easily picture the dawn tomorrow bringing with it the same misty morning fog I’d always imagined in those stories. And in the night I knew every shape would be the impenetrable black of fresh coffee and oil spills. A little intimidating, I’m not embarrassed to admit. Almost oppressive really, though in such a large group I knew there was nothing to be scared of.

It took half the day to hike up to a good-sized clearing that seemed to satisfy the most adventurous members blazing our trail. I gratefully dropped my pack and took a long pull from my water bottle. I wasn’t looking forward to sharing a tent with someone and had half a mind to roll my sleeping bag out under the stars even if it rained, but that was probably a stupid idea considering how cold it can get at night.

Having nothing to do while the more experienced outdoorsmen-and-women set up camp, a few people just milled around chatting, already cracking open beers. After that lecture, Carl probably expected me to either join them or help the first group, even though I’d just slow them down since I wouldn’t know what I was doing. Instead, with the super mature attitude of _‘I’m an adult and he can’t make me,’ _I picked Option C and sat cross-legged in the dirt somewhere I’d be out of the way. To stave off boredom, I rolled my lucky rock around between my fingers, admiring its translucent pink hue in the waning light.

“That’s pretty. Did you find it out here?” It took a second to register that Sarah had come over to my spot and was talking to me.

“No, I, uh, found it on the beach when I was just a kid.” I closed my fist around it lightly, suddenly protective. I didn’t want her asking if she could hold it. The answer would be an unbendable _no_ and I didn’t want to be an asshole to the only person who actually wanted to talk to me since our first week here.

“And you brought it with you to Germany?” Unable to puzzle out her tone, I dared a quick, searching look at her face before returning my gaze to a more comfortably neutral zone, her artfully messy side bun of coppery red hair. I interpreted her expression as more curious than judgmental, so I answered the question instead of just brushing it off.

“It’s my lucky rock. I take it everywhere.” Not that I really believe in luck, but people generally seem to accept this answer better than ‘I just like it,’ even if they aren’t superstitious themselves. I grinned as a thought occurred to me. “Really lucky, since TSA didn’t find it in my carry-on and assume it was crystal meth.”

“You’re a funny one,” she said, and I decided she was being too nice for me to ruin it by pointing out it wasn’t true if she didn’t laugh. We both looked out at the rest of the camp to see how things were progressing. The first group were almost done pitching up tents and the second were laughing drunkenly, already on their second or third beers. It’d be a miracle if there were any left for the rest of us by nightfall.

“Come on, we’re the only ones not at least pretending to be busy. Let’s do something easy, like gather sticks for firewood.” I blinked up at her, confused as the words took a moment to register before I stood up. To my surprise, we didn’t stick to the treeline within view of the camp, instead heading deeper into the woods, just far enough we could still hear the others without too much effort and find our way back easily.

“My little cousin’s on the spectrum too,” she stated casually as we picked through the brush. Damn, and here I thought I’d been pretty lowkey about it all this time. My parents don’t like me “advertising” how I’m different to other people, but the observant ones still pick up on it sometimes. “My aunt acts like it’s this great personal trial from God, but I think maybe she just doesn’t know how to talk to him, you know? He’s always a sweetheart to me. And a nonstop chatterbox once he gets on a roll, but I think that’s cute.” People tell me things like this sometimes too. It gets a little tedious if I’m honest, but telling her that would’ve been rude.

“So…the real reason I lured you out here alone in the middle of the deep, dark, mysterious woods…” She said it with an exaggeratedly ghoulish accent, but once she turned around to face me, the playfulness dropped and she adopted a more serious expression. For a heart-stopping moment, I feared she was about to confess something I didn’t want to hear, like a secret crush on me or something. That would’ve been so awkward for reasons I didn’t want to have to explain to a girl I’d met through my parents’ church, knowing it could get back to them. I didn’t know her well enough yet to trust her with personal stuff, no matter how kind she was.

“I’m worried about you, Matty.” I hate being called that, but I gave her a pass this time since she clearly had something on her mind. While thankfully not a love confession, it was still unexpected. This was the most we’d ever spoken. What did she have to be worried about? She hardly knew me. “I don’t understand why you came on this trip when you obviously don’t want to be here.”

“That’s not true,” I blurted out. In hindsight it probably came off sounding defensive, but I was honestly just baffled. Where had she gotten that idea? I liked Germany, with its beautiful old buildings and majestic scenery like this. Had she realized I didn’t like being a missionary? That might be worse than my parents finding out about the…other thing.

“Kiddo, you look miserable. All. The. Time.”

“That’s just my face.” She looked startled for a second before bursting into laughter. I hadn’t meant it as a joke, but I’d take it. At least she seemed to believe me now. “Did Carl put you up to this?”

I never got an answer. I suddenly felt hot and then cold all over, an intuitive, terrifying sense of _wrongness_ that came completely out of nowhere and couldn’t be shaken off. I held up a hand to shush her, and though she clearly didn’t know why, she humored me for several long seconds while I stood there trying to figure myself out.

“Matt?” she eventually questioned, her tone caught somewhere between wry and concerned again.

“Shhhh. Do you hear that?”

She tilted her head into an exaggerated ‘listening’ pose. “Hear what?” The smile slowly fell away from her face as the same thing dawned on her that I’d only just picked up on myself when I asked the question. Nothing. We were hearing absolutely nothing. Both of us turned back towards the camp, which was invisible to us through the thick trees. No laughter. No terrible singing or rustling of velcro and tarp or shouts for someone to toss someone else another beer. Sarah and I stood shoulder to shoulder now as we gazed forward.

“Okay, that’s…weird,” she whispered, clearly just as uneasy as I was about breaking the silence ourselves. She turned her head to look at me. “Prayer circle?” she suggested. I shook my head, positive that wasn’t it though I couldn’t put a finger on why I was so certain. She took hold of my arm and I didn’t begrudge her for it. We walked the short distance back to our camp, trying to move as quietly as possible.

As we approached, I finally figured out what else was bothering me. The silence truly encompassed _everything_ within a certain radius from the campsite, even birds and insects and other general signs of wildlife.

Sarah’s grip on my arm tightened once we made it into the clearing. We were both too frozen at first to properly react. I'm tempted now to use that clichéd “it didn’t seem real” line except it’s not quite accurate. What we were seeing was very obviously, _disgustingly_ real, but when your mind races to the worst possible outcome you can imagine in a given scenario, you still don’t expect that to be what you _actually_ find. I guess my brain balked at the idea that its irrational fears could be right about something.

I counted seven bodies. I remember congratulating myself on having the presence of mind to think of that instead of just panicking. I thought about a lot of things, in fact, as I stared. I thought of how one of us was going to have to wade through the mess to figure out which one was Carl, then search through his pockets for the keys to the rental van parked miles up the trail. I thought about whether or not bears could climb trees and suggesting that we do that in case it returned to continue its feast. I thought that actually most of them didn’t look _eaten,_ just maimed beyond recognition, and wasn’t that abnormal animal behavior? I thought about the air smelling like copper and wet musk and shit. I thought about all the screaming and crying and _crunching_ we didn’t hear and _how had we not heard it?_ I thought and I thought…and I stood there.

Sarah was shaking, I finally noticed, this particular detail coming in a little less distant and abstract than the others. She hugged me. I barely felt it. I think she was crying, but I don’t really remember. _This is unhealthy,_ I observed about myself. _Not the time to be entering shutdown. Pay attention._ But it was Sarah who bore the burden of paying attention for both of us.

She sucked in a ragged breath, and her hold on me tightened again, before she very deliberately loosened it and went still. I came back to myself a bit and turned my head just a little, trying to get a look at her face that wasn’t too blurred in my periphery. She was looking over my shoulder and a bit off to the side, but with her eyes hooded like she was trying not to be _caught_ looking.

“Matt,” she said, lips barely moving, her voice little more than a puff of air I felt more than heard. “We have to run now. When I let go, you _move.”_

I didn’t question her. Didn’t try to look behind me either. I just did as she told. The moment she slipped her arms away from me and took off, I ran after her.

She was fast, much faster than I was. I struggled to keep up, not wanting to lose sight of her. I could hear the thing following us, crashing through underbrush and low-hanging branches. We zigzagged quite a bit, trying to shake off our pursuer, and I could only hope I wouldn’t lag too far behind Sarah and get lost. Gaps where I could see the once pink and orange sky peeking through the canopy above were darkening into deep purple. The sun was setting, but I couldn’t have told you in which direction. I would regret not paying more attention to that later.

I stopped being able to tell if I was still being chased after awhile, unable to hear over my own harsh breathing and the thunderous choir of blood rushing through my ears. I only caught up to Sarah when she finally slowed to a stop, and had to catch myself against a nearby oak, my legs threatening to spasm and drop me to the ground right there. She leaned back against another part of the same tree, managing a weak grin as she looked down at me.

“Sorry…track and field…three years,” she panted between breaths. I managed a smile as well. I felt a bit safer, knowing she wouldn’t have stopped no matter how much we were both ready to collapse if she wasn’t confident we’d lost the thing chasing us. I wanted to ask her what she’d seen, or if she had any idea how we would get back to the trail from here, but I was dizzy with exhaustion and still needed a minute to catch my breath.

A brilliant glow illuminated Sarah’s face, momentarily startling me before I realized it was just her phone. It was eerie seeing her so lit up while we were shrouded in darkness from all sides until she changed her settings to dim it down significantly, glancing around nervously like someone else might have seen. I don’t blame her. I had the same concern.

“Shit, I don’t have signal. Of course,” she muttered, glaring at her phone for a moment before resignedly putting it away again. “Check yours too, just in case you have better luck than me.”

I didn’t, naturally, and the battery was almost dead anyway. I considered making a dorky joke about the crystal in my pocket failing me, but figured she might not appreciate the humor under the circumstances. I quickly made the same lighting adjustments to my phone before putting it away again, hoping to also conserve what little charge I had left.

Sarah…made an odd noise while I was still looking down, letting my eyes readjust to the dark. Almost like she was about to say something before abruptly cutting off. I looked up, about to whisper if she was alright and whether she had seen anything else. She wasn’t there.

I peeked around the large tree we’d been leaning against, then around a few others nearby when she wasn’t there either. I even looked up, thinking she might have somehow climbed one too quickly and quietly for me to notice. I made a small circuit around the area, coming full circle back to our big oak before the unreality of the situation settled into the only reality available which I had no choice but to accept. Sarah was just…gone.

How was that possible? She’d been right in front of me! Knowing it was actively stupid on my part, but that I also wouldn’t forgive myself if I just silently slinked off the moment she vanished, I stayed at that spot for a few agonizing minutes, calling out her name first quietly, then louder as I got bolder, or more reckless I guess, depending on your point of view.

I debated the wisdom in using my flashlight app to look around the area again more thoroughly in case I’d missed something. On the one hand, I feared we had called the attention of whatever else was in the forest with us in those brief seconds we’d taken our phones out. But if that was the case, shouldn’t it have already seen me too? Plus, I’d made myself a stationary target for the past several minutes, and a rather vocal one at that, and still nothing had happened to me yet. I took my chances with the app, but there was still no sign of her anywhere. It also killed what remaining power my phone had in under a minute, so now I had another useless paperweight to add to my collection.

It was too cold to keep standing in place any longer. I had to get moving and find some kind of shelter for the night. I wished I’d learned something useful before coming out here, like reading the stars, but the best I could do was pick a bright one I liked the look of and try to follow it. Maybe it was Polaris, but I didn’t take that for granted as fact just because it was the brightest one I could see at the time. It wouldn’t have made much difference anyway, since I had no idea where north was in relation to myself and the camp of horrors Sarah and I had left behind.

Having only starlight to navigate by was challenging, especially through areas where the trees were thicker and less spread apart, but I got used to it after a while. Eventually I even stopped jumping at every rustle of leaves or sound of darting hooves in the distance, resigned to keep pushing forward at a steady rate until either I found somewhere safe or something found me. I wasn’t entirely sure I cared which anymore. I was so tired after only an hour or so, if it was even that long. Those earlier spikes of adrenaline had left me drained, and it was only sheer stubbornness that kept me from curling up under a random tree. On top of that, it had been hours since I’d eaten and I was starting to feel…dizzy? That couldn’t have been from hunger or even dehydration though, not this fast. Right? Probably just the exhaustion then. Allowing myself to collapse wherever I happened to be standing was starting to look better by the second.

At first I thought I was imagining it, like a hopeful mirage in the middle of the desert. But as I kept going, the faint, familiar smell seemed to be getting stronger. Smoke. Like a zombie, I’d automatically adjusted the trajectory of my path to shuffle towards it, had probably already been following it unconsciously for a bit before the rest of my brain caught up with me. A quick glance up confirmed I was no longer following the path of my star. I didn’t readjust again, the promise of fire too tempting to ignore. I moved a little faster now.

It was the most breathtaking sight I’ve ever come across. A cozy clearing, a roaring fire, a giant gnarled old log just a few feet away that looked like the most comfortable chair in all of existence from where I was standing. Off to the side I saw a steaming pot and kettle that looked like they’d both been taken off the fire just moments before, their aromas intermingling with the woodsmoke and releasing into the cool night air. It was perfect except for one thing. I was the only person there.

The owner couldn’t have been gone for more than a minute, from the looks of things. As badly as I wanted to rest, I didn’t want to just invite myself to sit down and surprise them as they got back. I circled the line of trees surrounding the little camp, calling out obvious things like, “Excuse me? I’m lost. Can you please help? Hilf mir?” There was no response, no sign of anyone else nearby at all apart from the camp itself. It reminded me too much of Sarah. Unsettled, I gave up and let myself collapse onto the log.

My discovery had woken me up and cleared my head a bit, enough that I didn’t feel like passing out on the spot at least. What I’d assumed were two blankets rolled out between the log and the fire was actually a quilt laid out on top of a bearskin. Another unpleasant reminder of what had happened this evening, though I was far less certain now that a bear had killed Carl and the others. It didn’t add up with the rest.

There was a small, lidless wooden box at the foot of the bearskin as well. Inside were a bunch of dried herbs I mostly couldn’t identify and left alone, salt, two pewter cups, a couple wooden bowls and spoons, and a jar of what looked like honey though I couldn’t open it to be sure. It was sealed shut by a bunch of melted wax, like someone had set a candle out and forgotten it overnight.

The sweet and savory smells drifting over to me from the pot were becoming too much to ignore. They twisted my stomach up painfully in emptiness and want. Whoever made this meal only to walk away and leave it to grow cold would hopefully forgive me for helping myself while it was still warm, I decided once I could no longer distract myself from it. I wolfed the first bowl down in minutes. A hearty stew of apples, potatoes, carrots, and pork—I wanted to marry whoever made it. I savored my second helping for longer, trying to guess which of the few herbs I’d recognized might have gone into the dish. Rosemary, thyme, a hint of bay leaf, and…maybe anise, or caraway seeds? Not too sure about that last one. It was delicious though, and the pot was still half-full by the time I’d finished. It felt decadent to then pour myself a cup of coffee as well, but again it would’ve clearly been a waste to just leave it. Someone had already sweetened it, adding honey and cinnamon right into the kettle. I sipped my stolen drink and stared into the fire, feeling warm and satisfied, oddly content in spite of all the horrible things I hadn’t forgotten.

By now I’d resigned myself fully in the knowledge that whoever this camp had belonged to, they probably weren’t coming back, and I was no longer as bothered by it as I knew I should be. I was tired. Toeing my shoes off and removing my jacket to use as a pillow, I nestled myself comfortably between the bearskin and the blanket. There were crushed flowers sandwiched between them, I saw as I laid down, lavender going by the smell. They added to my drowsiness and made me smile as I watched the flames until I fell asleep.

It was still dark out. The fire had burned down to embers, but I could make out the shadowed shapes dangling from tree branches in the darkness. Sticks bent and woven together into symbols I didn’t know but was sure I recognized from the other campsite Sarah and I had run away from. I _knew_ they were the same, dream-logic making an absolute fact of something I’d remember wasn’t true upon waking. There’d been no weird stick symbols in the trees at our campsite. Someone would have noticed and pointed them out to the rest of us if there had been, surely.

A figure stood over me, but I couldn’t move. My vision had gone hazy, distorting its size back and forth between that of a person and of something much larger. I had only a vague impression of what it looked like, but the important details imprinted themselves heavily on my mind—a deep red cloak, bleached bone, jagged white antlers tearing through the hood. Instead of becoming clearer, my vision only swam more as it knelt, whispering. I didn’t know enough German to make out what it was saying, but I understood danke and geschenk and…and my name. Still thinking in the logic of dreams, I registered mild surprise that it had even pronounced it correctly. A dream would get that right though, wouldn’t it?

Its hands smelled like ash. I tried to pull away when it touched my face but my body still wasn’t cooperating with me. It drew something on my forehead, trailing soft, crumbling dirt against my skin in its wake.

I jerked up, my heart pounding almost as hard as it had when I was running, the taste of bile stuck in my throat. I stared out into the trees directly ahead of me. There were no strange hanging symbols anywhere, and no dirt on my fingers when I rubbed my face. I could also see better than I had in the dream. The fire hadn’t gone completely out and was only about halfway down from the merry blaze it had been when I fell asleep. There was also a man standing next to it now.

I sat up straighter, still uneasy, now possibly with good cause. The man turned around and smiled when he saw me awake. He said something in German and though I couldn’t understand it, his voice sounded mellow and kind. He had a thick brown beard and wore perfectly ordinary hiking clothes too, I noticed. I relaxed a little bit, but not completely.

“I…I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat, realizing how thin and reedy my voice sounded, too much like the scared kid I probably looked like and certainly felt like. “Sorry,” I tried again. “But I don’t understand you.” I tried to remember how to say it in German. It was hard to think past bad dreams and jangled nerves.

“No trouble,” he said in English, just as smooth and softspoken as before. “I said I hope you don’t mind, it smelled good but I did not want to wake you.”

“What?” I thought there was a communication error until I saw both bowls had been used and the other pewter mug was in his hand. “Oh, that’s…fine. I didn’t make—wait, is this not your camp?”

Now the stranger seemed confused too. He looked around, as if expecting someone else to show up from beyond the treeline. “Is it not yours?”

I shook my head. “No, I found it like this. I was…I got lost and…” I had to say it. The words were harder to push out than I expected though. “They’re all…the others, they’re, they died. They’re dead. And she was…I don’t know. There was…I-I _don’t know,_ but she was _there,_ and then she wasn’t, but she _couldn’t_ have and I-I-I don’t know, _I don’t know,_ I don’t…” The man sat down on the bearskin, right next to me, and it startled me so badly I forgot to keep spinning myself tighter and tighter into an even bigger freak out about everything else.

“Listen to me.” He didn’t say ‘look at me,’ but I did it anyway. He had some salt-and-pepper strands in his beard, and pretty green eyes I didn’t mean to look into but couldn’t pull away from now that I’d met them on accident. Most eyes hurt after more than a second and were their own natural repellent. These eyes were quicksand. I wasn’t sure that was better. He put his hand on the back of my neck and I cringed, naturally, but he kept it there anyway and I…stilled. He smiled like this was all he wanted before he spoke again.

“You are safe,” he told me. His voice was deep and mellifluous, easy to sink into. “And you are not lost. I found you. I am sorry for what you had to go through to get to me, but I am here for you now. I will not let you come to harm. I will not let anything take you away, like your friend. This I swear.”

How do you even respond to something like that? Trick question, if you’re me you just stare dumbly until the guy eventually stands up again, and then you wait until you’re not so light-headed to get up too. “You…you can’t just promise that,” was the first remotely intelligent reply I could think up. That seemed to amuse him.

“I can promise you anything I want. Believe it and it will be true. That’s the power of a promise.” Apparently I’d been rescued by some kind of forest-dwelling philosopher-poet.

“And what if I don’t believe?” I don’t know why I was being so argumentative. He’d been nothing but kind to me. Even now, instead of annoyed he just seemed thoughtful before he gave another cryptic-sounding answer.

“Then it will still be true,” he said. “But you will be uncomfortable, as it often goes with truths we won’t accept.” Well damn. Guess that’s what I get for trying to be facetious.

I learned his name was Johannes as he guided me back to his cabin. Apparently he’d been on his nightly walk when he saw the fire and came to investigate. I told him mine, then shortened it to just Matt since most people do that anyway.

“Matthias,” he said. He pronounced it correctly. It’s such a small silly thing to notice, but I’m so used to hearing ‘Muh-_thigh_-us’ even after I’ve introduced myself, or ‘Muh-_tee_-us’ as other Germans I’ve met on this trip have said it. I usually just let it go since it’s not a big deal, but the middle syllable is supposed to be _‘tie,’_ as my mom is always quick to correct people on.

It’s a big but cozy two-room cabin, with the second room being the bathroom. Bed and sitting area with a fireplace up front, kitchenette with a wall garden of herbs growing at the back. Johannes proudly explained that he’d just finished retrofitting the place, setting up the plumbing and electrical wiring only recently. “Not so bad a home even to a modern young creature like you, hm?” he winked. I had to laugh. When I brought up calling the police, he mentioned that he’d dropped his phone fishing at the lake a couple of days ago and hadn’t replaced it yet, showing me the charger cord on his dresser. It wasn’t a fit for mine, unfortunately. He does have an old laptop though, like Windows XP old, which he cautioned me can be pretty finicky and only seems to work when it wants to.

I’m more impressed he found a weak wifi signal to connect to all the way out here. I couldn’t get most websites to load, including emergency services, but this one seems to work alright. Johannes is politely pretending to be busy with other things while I type this out, only now and then commenting on what he reads over my shoulder. It’s longer than I intended, but I didn’t want to leave out anything that could be important later, and it helps to organize my thoughts this way.

I’ll update when there’s more to tell, and hopefully I’ll have gotten into contact with the authorities by then. Tomorrow Johannes wants to check first if that other camper ever came back. Then he’ll take me with him into town. He promises. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't think my "rescuer" is too keen on helping me get home.

Hello there, world. It’s been a few days. Things aren’t better, as you might have guessed by the title. The weather has kept us from leaving and made a stable connection harder to come by. I’m writing in a text file I’ll erase later and hoping I’ll have a bit of luck spamming the post button in one of those few-second windows that it reconnects. The rain has let up a bit and Johannes is taking care of the animals and a few other chores in his garden, lackadaisical as ever. Should give me some time to say what I need to. Also, I did manage to get an email off to someone at the local police station, so fingers crossed.

That first day—it was late morning by the time I woke up. Johannes had already been up a few hours but let me sleep in since I apparently “looked like I needed it.” He also wasn’t in any real hurry to get us out of the house, I gathered. He made me French toast, like he fancied himself the charming host of a bed and breakfast rather than some odd mountain man who’d found an even odder teenager with a crazy story about a monster that killed his friends out in the middle of the woods. It tasted nothing like the cereal or anything else by its name I’d had back in the States. “Fresh eggs and goat’s milk, that’s the secret,” he told me, which was how I learned that Johannes kept chickens and goats. Rabbits too, apparently. It had been too dark when we got in last night for me to notice any animal pens or other structures outside. He offered to show me around the place later. I wanted to point out that while he may be used to a more leisurely pace out here, I needed to get back with some urgency, but then I imagined my father angrily scolding me for being rude to my host after he’d done so much for me by keeping me sheltered and fed, and for daring to question another man’s authority and judgment in his own home. I kept my stupid mouth shut.

After breakfast we made our way back to the campfire he’d found me at the night before. I really hoped we’d find nothing there, everything packed up and gone, maybe at most an angry note wedged under a rock for the thieves who’d stolen their supper. But when we got to the site, I saw that nothing had changed. Everything was still exactly as Johannes and I had left it. Ants swarmed the bowls and cookware we’d left out, devouring what remained. Nature’s cleaning crew. Carl’s face would be slowly starting to sink in under the weight of them by now, I realized, if it hadn’t already caved in on itself due to a partially crushed skull.

“The forest must be pleased by the night’s bounty. She gluts well on it.” I looked back to Johannes, but he was still watching the ants, clearly thinking along the same lines I was yet seemingly unaware or uncaring that voicing such a macabre observation aloud might be considered inappropriate. We took the mysterious camper’s things back to the cabin rather than leave them out another night, then Johannes asked if I wanted to stay here and wait or go with him to look for them and Sarah. I obviously wasn’t a fan of the idea of tromping around through the wilds again, but I didn’t like the thought of him going out on his own and leaving me to worry not only when but _if_ he might come back. The possibility that he might disappear like Sarah and I’d be stuck out there alone again also weighed heavily on me, however.

My indecision must have been plain to read on my face. With a soft expression, he walked to a small cabinet wedged in an out of the way corner and beckoned me over. Scattered on top in a haphazard way that seemed somehow deliberate were assorted glass jars, most of which seemed to contain oils or herbs, and a loose sprinkling of leaves, flower petals, and even small animal bones. I was too fascinated to be put off by that last morbid detail. I stood silently and watched as he selected a few of these jars from the rest, then rummaged through the cabinet and pulled out a small candle and a silky, shimmery cloth that was red on one side and pink on the other.

He took hold of my hand in one of his, and with the other poured a few drops of oil onto the candle before lighting it. The scent of marjoram filled up the room, and I instinctively knew that from this point forward I wasn’t to speak or let go of his hand before being signaled. Next, he sprinkled cinnamon, clove, and rosemary over the top. He took hold of my other hand and stretched both of them out to rest more than a foot above the candle, palms up, then looped the cloth gently around both of my wrists, then his own with the same careful dexterity, and clasped both of my hands again.

“As we make our journey together,” he muttered softly, “we seek your guidance and protection. Though our hands are bound in the physical for only a moment, they shall remain bound in spirit long after the light has gone out. Let nothing that would seek to separate us come between them. So it will be.” He looked up at me as he finished and I stared right back, heart lodged up in my throat. After a moment I understood it was my turn to speak. I repeated just the last line quietly. Somehow it came out sounding more confident than I expected.

We waited until the candle burnt out, which didn’t seem to take all that long, to unbind our hands, silent up til that moment. Then he asked, “How do you feel now?”

That was just it. I genuinely felt better. Calmer, like it really would be just as he said. No invisible bogeyman would snatch one of us up the second the other wasn’t looking. No amount of head bowing at my church or murmured offers of thoughts and prayers from other congregation members had ever achieved something like that.

He kept holding my hand, or crooking his arm around my shoulder or putting it on the small of my back for most of our walk outside, and I surprisingly didn’t mind at all. It didn’t feel unwarranted or patronizing or childish, just deeply reassuring. We didn’t find Sarah or anyone else, of course. I’d kind of expected that. It was nearing mid-afternoon on our way back when we saw the storm clouds rolling in the distance. Johannes frowned up at them and said it would likely start coming down heavily over the next week. When I asked him how he knew, he just twitched his lips up and said, “When you have lived out here for a long while, you get a feel for these things.” That was also when he told me our trek back to town would have to wait. He didn’t know the trail I’d taken up with my group and the route he usually took could be treacherous when the ground was too muddy and slick. “Can you be patient for me?” He asked like I didn’t know I had no choice in the matter.

The second day—this is when things started getting harder to ignore, for all that it started out pleasantly. Well, pleasant except that I had another strange dream. This time I was in bed, but Johannes wasn’t asleep on the rug-and-blanket pile he’d made up for himself in front of the fireplace on my first night here. He was standing over me with a pleased smile. A smile I was already getting used to seeing but his eyes…they seemed a shade darker and they were practically unblinking as they looked into mine. The walls wept honey, and it smelled like cinnamon and marjoram and all those other herbs again.

He reached down and put his hand to my chest, and I gasped in wrenching pain. It felt like he was drawing something out, something that was eager to burst through the inner walls of my heart and reach back. I looked down and saw that there were bloody spikes poking through my shirt, slicing cuts into his palm and growing tendrils to reach in like they were trying to twine with his own veins. They were crystalline in structure, their glint a rosy pink that wasn’t just staining from the intermingled blood.

I woke up with my own hand over my chest, swallowing back spit. It was drizzling outside, not quite the promised torrential downpour just yet. Johannes was already puttering around in the kitchen. The cinnamon and honey smell was coming from there. I surreptitiously pulled up my borrowed sleep shirt and checked. There were no marks or blemishes on my skin. I laid my head back on the pillow and tried to relax. Then I abruptly sat up, sparking a “Good morning,” from Johannes which I suppose was rather rude of me to ignore, but I wasn’t really thinking about it. I dived straight for the pockets of my discarded jeans, feeling relieved when I pulled out my “lucky” crystal and saw nothing different about it either.

Johannes was watching me while he continued to cook. “Do you always carry that rose quartz on your person?” he asked me. I clutched it to my chest, running my fingers over it with the other hand in a pattern familiar only to me, a very habitual gesture when I’m in need of some form of comfort.

“I, I do. I tell people it’s my lucky rock,” I mumbled. He hummed, a curious smile on his face.

“I suppose that could be one use for it.” He stirred something slowly in the saucepan. “Do you know anything about crystals, Matthias?” he asked. I shook my head and looked at him expectantly. He liked teaching me, I knew already, having spent the better part of yesterday pointing out different plants and wildlife and telling me things about them I didn’t know, which was a lot as it turned out.

He held out his hand and I knew without asking that he expected me to hand it to him. Normally I’d pitch a silent internal fit at just the thought of letting anyone else handle it, but I trusted him in this. I dropped the quartz into his outstretched palm and he held it up, inspecting it in the grey watery light from the window. He brought it close to his mouth and whispered something I didn’t understand, then put it to his ear like a conch shell. I tried not to laugh. Finally, he made a strange swirling motion over the stovetop with it in his fist, only to seemingly think better of it midway through.

He tugged on my sleeve and pulled me in closer until I was standing at the stove in front of him. I wasn’t expecting this and had no idea what he was after now, but I waited for him to show me. He put my hand over the back of his enclosed fist and moved it in that swirling pattern again, over and over and over. Watching our hands, swaying a little with the movement, it was somewhat hypnotic.

Once I got the hang of it, I felt him place something in my other hand. It was a honey dipper. His hand cupped the back of mine as he swirled it over the open coffee percolator, its top already removed so the honey could drizzle right into the steaming brew. The motions we were making with the dipper and the quartz didn’t quite match up together yet they still felt somehow complementary.

“What exactly is going on right now?” I giggled, unable to hold it in anymore. This was weirdly fun but also so unapologetically _bizarre,_ what we were doing. Johannes chuckled behind me too. I shivered, feeling his breath tickle against the back of my neck. Finally we stopped, his hands coming up to rest against my shoulders before gently steering me to the table. He pulled out a chair for me and dropped the rose quartz back into my palm as I sat down. He didn’t utter a word about what just happened.

Breakfast was a potato and egg scramble with a side of applesauce, and coffee, of course. Johannes mixed the applesauce in with his scramble and I did the same with mine, absolutely trusting his culinary decision-making even if I couldn’t be sure about much else. We enjoyed each other’s company silently as we ate, listening to the rain patter a little harder against the roof now. Eventually, as I stood to pour us both more coffee, Johannes said, “I’ve never done much work with crystals, but there was one time years ago that I wanted something desperately, and to make it happen I branched some of my studies into areas outside of my usual specialties.” I set our refilled mugs down and sat across from him again.

“What do you mean?” I asked him, curious if I was about to get a more detailed lesson on the interesting set of folk beliefs Johannes seemed to follow.

“I was away from my forest at the time, traveling in hopes of crossing paths serendipitously with what I was searching for, but I soon realized I wouldn’t find it that way. I followed my normal meditative rituals and said my usual prayers,” he continued, “when an idea came to me. I dug in the earth and found a crystal I felt calling to me, a rose quartz just like the one you have.” His smile was wistful and nostalgic. I was getting good at reading all the different smiles Johannes would wear, which was a novel experience for me all on its own.

“I whispered my secret hopes to it, my most fervent wish. And when that was done, I tossed it as far as I could fling it into the ocean.”

“What? Why? What would you do that for?”

“It felt right to,” he stated simply. “It skipped across the surface nine times before it sank to the bottom.” He paused to sip from his coffee. I mimicked him, swirling the drink idly around my tongue before swallowing, thinking about what he’d just said. It seemed a bit too personal to ask him what he had wished for or whether he had gotten it.

“When was that?” I asked since it seemed like the safest question. I glanced back up when he didn’t immediately answer. He was looking at me with a different smile now, one that was warm and fond but also somehow…I don’t know. Enigmatic, I guess would be the closest word I could come up with. With a tilting sense of unease now, I realized I knew the answer before he said it.

“Nine years ago.” My fingers tightened around the handle of my mug. I looked away, unable to bear his gaze anymore with the same uncanny casualness I’d developed over the past day and a half.

“I was nine,” I said. A response that I think I’d meant to come across as inane, yet it sounded almost accusatory to my own ears. I could see him tilting his head curiously from the corner of my eye. “Nine years ago,” I clarified. “I was nine years old.”

I dared to look up again. His smile hadn’t changed but his eyes…they had an intensity about them that reminded me of the dream I’d just woken from. “It is funny how things eventually line up, yes?”

“You mean math?” I said in a blithe tone it was probably obvious I didn’t feel. “Yeah, I’m a real fan of its work with numbers and counting.” He didn’t seem bothered at all by my snark and easily took my shift in attitude towards him in stride.

“Nine is considered an auspicious number in many cultures, you know. Lucky, some would even say.” Now it felt like I was being mocked. Not cruelly, but I was pissed off nevertheless. This man I’d met barely two days ago hadn’t earned the right to gently tease me like we were old friends.

“There were _nine_ of us in my church group,” I pointed out, bitter. “Now most of them are dead.”

“And here sits the ninth member before me, hale and whole. I would dare say nine’s reputation holds true, in this instance.”

“Or maybe my lucky crystal saved me,” I retorted, sarcastic, then sick as I realized what I’d just said.

“Perhaps it did.” For god’s sake, I wished he would _stop looking at me like that._ As if he’d read my mind, or more likely just my expression, he did finally look away and excused himself to go take care of chores outside.

I sat at that table for a while after he’d left, trying to pretend the thoughts I was thinking didn’t mean anything. I was misinterpreting things, misreading the situation. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d done something like that, right? I got up and booted up the laptop after a bit, but it wasn’t connecting and I really didn’t have the patience for it at that moment. I started poking around the cabin instead, opening up cabinets and drawers and just generally acquainting myself better with its contents. When that distraction lost its novelty too, I checked the kitchen window. Further in the back, past the animal pens, there was a tiny smokehouse and another, much smaller cabin than the one I was standing in where Johannes butchered deer and rabbits. I hadn’t been in there yet. It seems incredible, now that I think about it, that someone could build an entire little off-the-grid farm and live on it for years in the middle of a forest that undoubtedly wasn’t private property without ever getting evicted.

I pulled on Johannes’s spare raincoat and stepped out, making my way towards the butchery room. As I got closer, however, the door to the smokehouse opened. Johannes didn’t look terribly surprised to see me out there and quickly ushered me in out of the rain. I immediately noticed that there wasn’t any meat hanging up at the moment, but there was a boiling pot large enough to fit a man inside over the fire pit.

“What are you making?” I asked, leaning to get a closer look. I resisted the impulse to rear back when I realized what the long, oddly shaped bits floating around in it were.

“Bone broth. From a young doe I caught the other day. It should be ready for canning by morning.”

“Where’s the rest?” I kept my face blank and told my overactive imagination to shut the hell up.

“She didn’t have enough meat on those bones to warrant preservation. I already incorporated what was worthy of taking into dinner a couple of nights ago.” He gave the thick brew a final good stir, skimming a small amount of fat off the top before heading back inside with me. Rainy days were a perfect time for making candles as well, he told me in his usual good cheer and humble charm, grabbing a bucket I’d found earlier under the sink. The substance in it I’d been curious about was tallow. He invited me to help and there was no good reason to say no, since it wasn’t like I’d be busy with other plans. The process was simple and easy enough. I didn’t try again to enter the other cabin out back that day or the next.

Last night, I had one more dream. It was dark out and there was Johannes, sitting naked on the ground, a lone candle placed in front of him. Apart from his state of undress he didn’t look any different from now, but I knew that this had happened a long time ago. He was muttering to something in his hand. I could tell he was speaking in German, but because it was my dream, I could understand what he was saying.

“Lovely eyes, lovely mouth, lovely skin. Sweet,” he murmured, giving a small, wolfish grin. “But also has a bit of bite sometimes. Takes instruction well, but is not without questions. An inquisitive mind ready to learn.” His face seemed to slowly darken in the candlelight as I watched, an edge to it I might not have had a name for in my waking hours, but here and now a couple of words sprang readily to mind. Possessive. Jealous. “Will never suffer the touch of another man. Would not even deign to look upon anyone else.” His eyes suddenly snapped up, latching greedily onto mine. “He has eyes only for me.”

I woke up in the dark, still a little while before dawn. The rain was pouring down in sheets against the rooftop, and thunder rattled the windows. Johannes was still asleep on his pallet on the floor. I turned my face into the pillow under my head. My shoulders shook, but I tried to be quiet and soften the hitch to my breath.

The bed creaked. Evidently I’d not been quiet enough. His chest against my back was heavy and warm even through the blanket. I didn’t cry for very long, but he stayed with me like that for the rest of the night anyway, one arm flung around me, the other hand gently petting my hair. He murmured into my ear—kind, soft, genuine words I knew he meant to be comforting. “I know this has been difficult for you. You are stressed and afraid, and there is no shame in this. These feelings will pass in time. I am here for you, Matthias. There is nothing left out there to fear when you are with me.” I suppose he was right about that.

At some point his hand found mine and twined our fingers together, and I let him. We lay there quietly now, just watching the rain.

“Johannes.” His thumb stroked my hand to let me know he was listening. “Why did you lie when I asked if that was your campfire?” His fingers tightened the tiniest of increments around mine.

“Why did you pretend to believe me?” he asked in kind. As if you tell the strange man you’re trapped in the middle of nowhere with, who reads over your shoulder as you try to send messages out, that you’re not quite comfortable with taking him at his word. He sighed, seeming to take my silence as answer enough. “Because I was uncertain how soon you would wish to give up if we were only looking for one person.” Because I might have insisted we leave before the weather took its ill turn, if it was just Sarah missing when I already suspected deep down that she was never going to be found.

“Loneliness can make a man so terribly selfish, Matthias,” he said. “Can you forgive me?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to feel like I meant it since I know I’m not as good of a liar. “So long as you’re not also lying about taking me back soon.” I’m even worse at trying to pass off real statements as jokes, but he didn’t call me out on it. His hold on me tightened a little again before he answered.

“Of course,” he said. “We will go into town as soon as the weather permits, as I said.”

“Okay.” I smiled, squeezing his hand back, and pretended I believed that too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see the same update on reddit, click [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/cq4mwm/im_lost_in_a_german_forest_i_dont_think_my/).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm home now.

When I was nine, a few weekends before my summer vacation ended, I was at the beach with my parents, gathering seashells. I wasn’t allowed to go back into the water yet, having just eaten lunch, but I didn’t mind. I was slowly amassing a collection of little conches, half-shells, and even thin broken-off pieces, enjoying the feeling of the tide as it swept back in and splashed against my legs. During one of the tides, something hard, sort of rough-edged in feeling but not sharp, rolled across the top of my foot. When I looked down as the water receded, there was an odd-looking rock resting in the sand between my feet. It reminded me of a gemstone, and I indulged a bit in the fantasy that it had come from some secret treasure hoard that belonged to a pirate, or given its uncut naturalistic shape, perhaps a mermaid. Of course, nine was old enough to know better, but I still wished my dad would play along when I showed it to him instead of just telling me, “Sorry, son, it’s not worth anything. It’s just shiny.”

My mom wouldn’t let me bring my seashells home. She said they were dirty and would just clutter up the house with useless junk. We lived in a house that was a lot like the church we went to—big (even though it was just the three of us, not even a family pet to help fill up the space), modern and minimalist in style. Even at that age I mostly stuck to my own room, feeling that if I stood too long in any other space that my very presence would somehow start cluttering up its energy and ruin that carefully cultivated aesthetic. Knowing better than to disobey, I dumped all the shells back into the water before we left. I didn’t show her the rock though, and Dad had already forgotten about it by the time we got in the car. It was just the right size to fit in the palm of my hand and not be visible anymore when I curled my fingers around it. I held it like that, both of my hands loosely fisted in a casual resting pose in my lap, for the entire ride back.

This is my final update. To everyone who’s read this far, especially those who replied to my last posts with encouragement or advice, thank you. I’m sorry my spotty connection and limited time alone kept me from responding to your comments, but just know that I read and appreciated them all, especially the one with the suggestion about brick dust and salt. I never got a chance to try it, but I’ll keep it in mind for the future in case of…well. Just in case, I guess.

First of all, I never did get a response to that email. I checked the spam folder. I even checked the sent and drafts folders but to my surprise, the message I wrote wasn’t there. I was _sure_ it went through. I also signed out before turning off the computer last time, and no one knows my password, so I don’t see how someone could have gotten in and deleted it. Why is it I’m allowed to talk to mass strangers online about what’s been happening, yet the moment I try to explain my situation to someone who might be in a position to actually help, this thing craps out on me? Alright, that might be a stupid question. And anyway, it doesn’t matter now.

The rains stopped after a few more days, and I finally got to see that misty fog I’d imagined since I was a kid as the sun rose. Johannes kindly indulged my request to take breakfast out on the front porch. This would be the first _and_ last time I got to see it like this, I told myself, aiming for optimism yet still managing to make myself a bit sad.

I offered to help him feed the animals this time. He said he didn’t need the help, but he appreciated my company all the same. I learned how to milk a goat that morning. He lifted the pail afterwards to bring it inside, stopping at the back door when he realized I hadn’t followed. I looked at the other cabin at the back of the property, then turned my head back to him. He gave no reaction, only continued to meet my gaze for a moment longer before turning back around to the door and heading inside. I went the other direction.

I didn’t pay any attention to the butcher’s tools mounted on the walls, giving no more than a passing thought to their obvious usefulness as weapons. I knew that no matter what else I found, I couldn’t bring myself to do something like that unless it was a matter of life and death, and Johannes was most certainly not planning on killing me. I was more interested in what I saw against the farthest wall anyhow.

The bearskin I’d slept on that first night was tacked up on the wall above a table much larger than the other altar inside the house. Dozens of unlit candles, both black and white and at various heights due to different states of melting and drip, sat atop a massive, stained, deep red cloak now being used as a tablecloth, so old and worn thin it felt like it should have fallen apart right then as I pinched it between my fingertips. It held together fine though, even when I tugged on it a little just to test its give.

The centerpiece, of course, was a deer skull with a crown of long, spiny antlers. I saw now as I gazed at it up close that on one of these antlers, twined around it with clear deliberate intent, was a long, curling hair, shining a brilliant coppery red as I wrapped one end around my finger and lightly pulled it taut under the morning sunlight.

“Sacrifices must be thanked for the gifts we receive, as surely as the gods must.” I wasn’t surprised to hear Johannes come in. It would have been more surprising if he could somehow stand to leave me alone for longer than five minutes.

“And what about everyone else?” I asked him, not looking up even as he came to stand directly behind me. “The ones with their guts spilled out on the ground. How are they being thanked?” How bland my voice sounded. I might have applauded myself for my steadiness, had it not been because I couldn’t feel much of anything at that moment. This tiny thread of hair, leaving the smallest of indentations against the pad of my finger as I held it, wasn’t new information. It was a confirmation.

“They were given in their entirety to the forest, not a single scrap taken for personal use. There can be no higher honor than that.”

Carefully, I loosened the hair from around my finger, letting it gently drift back into place on the altar. “So when do we leave?” I turned to look at him finally, keeping my face blank, my tone casual. I had to keep pretending to believe he was really going to take me back, even now with all this out in the open between us. After all, if I believed, he’d have to follow through on it, wouldn’t he? That was the rule of this game. He told me so himself on the night we met.

His jaw ticked. A rare tell that he was unhappy about something, which hopefully meant victory for me. “As soon as you are ready,” he answered.

The walk was far, and a bit slow-going without a proper trail to follow, as he’d warned it would be. I did my best to pay attention to where we were going, though I still wasn’t confident I’d be able to navigate those woods on my own if it came to it. We were silent for most of the trip, but it wasn’t tense like you’d expect. I still trusted him not to hurt me, as strange as that must seem, even if I knew I had to be careful about trusting him for much else.

The woods started to thin out, and I picked up my pace as I heard familiar sounds in the near distance. Cars. _People._ Gods, they really were noisier than I remembered, weren’t they? I’d thought we would have to walk along the road for a while, or possibly hitchhike, but no. The path Johannes had taken us on actually led right to the edge of civilization! A different city than the one I’d been staying in obviously, but that didn’t matter. I cut through a small park where kids were playing onto a busy market street. Other pedestrians bumped into my shoulders and jostled me as they passed, and I’d never been happier, even if I did still automatically shudder and hunch in a bit at every accidental brush against me. I’d made it. I was one step closer to being back where I belonged.

A hand reached out and grabbed my arm, yanking me back right as I was about to cross the street. “What—” A car zoomed past where I would have been standing had I continued forward, not even taking the time to give an angry petulant honk either in warning or chastisement, as if the driver couldn’t be bothered to notice they’d narrowly avoided running down a random civilian.

“I vowed to protect you from harm,” Johannes said, now seeming both a bit flustered and terribly amused by my overeagerness at the same time as he let go of my arm. “But please try not to make my task harder by walking directly into traffic.”

“Right,” I giggled, a bit giddy with nerves and relief as I fully absorbed what almost just happened. “Uh, thanks.” Johannes smiled but put his arm around me, like he feared I might go darting off again without him at any moment. Which was not an unwarranted concern, obviously, but I didn’t try to shake him off again just yet. Useful as it might be to cause a scene later if I needed to, I’d still rather avoid it if I could get help without one.

I started by just trying to get the attention of passers-by as we walked down the street, switching to what few German phrases I’d picked up once I remembered English wouldn’t be much use after the first attempt didn’t warrant me so much as a passing glance. It didn’t make a difference. A few people would glance up only to look away again and keep going on about their own business, but most didn’t even do that much and pretended they hadn’t heard me at all.

“Your pronunciation is terrible, my dear.”

“Well then, why don’t _you_ try?” I fired back, getting annoyed. People skirted around us as we stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

Accepting my challenge, Johannes called a greeting to a woman as she walked by that _did_ actually get her attention. He asked her a question that I didn’t have to understand fully to get the basic gist of. I knew perfectly well who _‘Jesus Christus’_ was, and I recognized the way she rapidly shook her head and kept walking, while others nearby who’d also heard him now suddenly ducked their heads and moved faster to get past us. I’d seen those reactions many a time to salespeople, activists, and evangelists alike. He had the audacity to look back at me and shrug, playfully flippant about the fact that he wasn’t even trying to pretend he was here to help anymore.

“Oh, is this funny to you now?” Someone almost bumped into me again as I backed away from him. That gave me an idea. I stepped deliberately into the path of the next person who happened by. “Hi, excuse me? Entschuldigen Sie bitte?” I didn’t care if I was even remotely close to getting that right anymore, desperate to make _anyone_ understand that something was wrong just by the urgency in my voice. The man simply seemed confused and a bit annoyed as we came almost chest to chest before going around me. So did the next person.

No one would talk to me. No one listened to what I had to say. They hardly seemed able to look at me, in fact, as if every time I came within view they suddenly felt the need to avert their eyes literally anywhere else. I had a creeping sense of déjà vu, and a feeling like I was in one of those optical illusion pictures that changed from one image into something else when you looked at them from a different angle.

By this point I should have started screaming in faces and grabbing onto people, but as the thought entered my head that maybe I could get someone to actually stop and pay attention to me if I was just a little more aggressive in my efforts, Johannes was in front of me again. He put his hand on the back of my neck, just like he had that first night. And just like that first night, I was drawn into his gaze and sank into his voice as he spoke, feeling myself be pulled away from the precipice of panic and frustration.

“It doesn’t matter, Matthias,” he stated with calm surety that I wanted to be wrapped up in like a weighted blanket. “These people will not help you. They do not care.” That didn’t sound right, but I didn’t know how to argue against it just then. And why was it _so_ reassuring to hear? “They cannot and will not take you from me. It is just as I promised you, see? Have I proven this to your satisfaction yet?”

“I…I don’t know,” I answered him honestly. I wasn’t even sure what he was saying anymore. He let out a quiet sigh, but he didn’t look annoyed by my response, only fond.

“You delight so in challenging me, don’t you?” Did I? “Come,” he said softly, putting his arm around my shoulders again to steer us back toward the park. I’d forgotten we were standing on a crowded sidewalk, but it didn’t matter as other people flowed around us like water as we passed. I laid my head on Johannes’s shoulder, feeling light-headed again, and heard another soft sigh as he leaned to kiss the top of it through my hair. This one sounded relieved.

You have to understand, I knew this was all a bit off somehow, but it didn’t seem _wrong_. I actually felt quite clear-headed, just very serene and gentled, sort of floaty. We were getting away from this bustling, pointless, noisy place back to where the world was slow, and quiet, and beautiful, and just us. This was why he brought me back when I asked, I realized rather dreamily. To show that he could still protect me anywhere, and so I would understand that I really wasn’t missing out on much at all.

It was obvious to both of us when I was fully back to myself, no longer so tranquil and quieted. I stopped moving, straightening my spine as I took in the familiar scenery around us. “No…” I stumbled back, out of Johannes’s reach, breathing shakily, all that dread and anxiety that had been building up an hour before returning at once and twice as strong now. “What did you do? _How could you do that?”_ Johannes’s face was impassive as he watched me careen closer and closer to an absolute breakdown. “I was right there, I was so close to—” _To getting the hell away from you_. “To getting out. H-how did I let you convince me to just _give up_ like that?”

“To be convinced, you must want to be convinced first.”

“What kind of backwards logic is that?” I spat. I looked behind me. We weren’t so deep back into the wilderness yet that I couldn’t just turn around and head back to the city on my own, if I could somehow just lose the man who dragged me back out here.

When I turned back, Johannes was standing very close to me again. He reached a hand toward my face but I recoiled from it. “No, don’t you _dare—”_

“I wouldn’t, not so soon after the last time,” he responded. Still, he let his hand drop. I hated the look of sympathetic concern in his eyes, like he only wanted to reach out and comfort me. As if comfort was anything within his right or his ability to give me now. “I’m afraid I cannot make your doubts or contradictory desires disappear entirely, only ease the burden of them for a little while.”

My _contradictory_ desires? It wasn’t hard to guess what he meant by that. “You think I _want_ this?” I asked him. It was nice, having an excuse to shift my horror into something more manageable. Anger. _“Fuck you,_ you deluded bastard. _I don’t want you!_ I don’t want to live with you in your creepy fucking house in the goddamn middle of nowhere! I want to go _home,_ Johannes. That’s all I’ve wanted this whole fucking time!”

“And where is home, Matthias?” he asked me, so infuriatingly patient even as I cursed him out. “Is it boxed inside a sterile, empty, too-large house with a boring couple who hide behind lip service and cheerless smiles how much they wish they had remained childless?”

“What?” My anger deflated. My voice got so small. I backed away from him a step. “How do you…what the hell do you think you know about my family?” I asked, trying to find that fury again.

He gave one of those secretive smiles that suggested he knew me and my innermost thoughts better than anyone else ever could. “You are not the only one who closes his eyes and sees the hidden truths of the one who is dearest to him.”

There were parts of that statement I couldn’t bring myself to even try touching upon, but at least one assumption was easy to correct. “You’re wrong. My parents love me.”

Johannes shrugged. “Perhaps they do. I don’t pretend to actually know these dour-faced strangers who live half a world away, Matthias. I have only described them as you see them.”

“I don’t think—” I cut myself off. This was pointless to argue, a distraction from what really mattered here. “Why can’t you just _let me go?”_ I asked, not trying to hide the desperate tinge to my question if there was a chance it could move him to change his mind.

For the first time, Johannes looked so…so _tired,_ and _pained._ Something in me clenched to see it. “My love, I know it’s not fair what I ask of you, but you don’t understand, for you this has been _easy,”_ he said. “I have been alone in the world for so long, longer than you are even old enough to imagine yet. When it became more than I could bear to go on anymore, I prayed, I conjured, I sacrificed…” Here he gave a wry, helpless-sounding little laugh. “And still I had to wait nearly another decade, on nothing more than a promise from the sea.”

He reached for me again, this time just to graze his fingertips against my cheek, and I let him, too frozen to move. “But it was worth the wait. I conjured, and at last you came to me. Who would spit in the face of his gods by returning such a gift?”

I finally backed away another step and shook my head. This was too much. All of it was too much. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, before I abruptly turned tail like a coward and ran.

I expected him to give chase, not to just stand there and watch me go. It didn’t make sense, I thought as I pushed myself to get back to town as quickly as possible and still didn’t hear anything but the sound of my own feet hitting the ground. Not after all of this, not after everything he had done just to bring me here and isolate me from everyone else I knew, one way or another. Maybe he _had_ changed his mind and was finally allowing me to leave. No, I didn’t believe that. Why even give a whole speech like that if in the end he was just going to let me—

He was standing twenty feet ahead of me.

I skidded to a halt, wide-eyed and panting. Then I took off in another direction. A few minutes later, it happened again. And again. And again. Childishly, I yelled at him, “STOP IT!” He just stared, the faintest trace of a smile returning to his lips once more.

It didn’t matter, I told myself, now simply walking away from him—albeit a little on edge and embarrassed—instead of running around like a headless chicken since he wasn’t actually _doing_ anything. Even if I couldn’t wrap my head around how he kept getting ahead of me, at least he wasn’t actually _stopping_ me from going back. Whatever his reasons for this new absurd game were, I could worry about them once I got closer to my destination.

It didn’t take long for me to realize my mistake, however, now that I was going slow enough to really look at my surroundings. The placement of the trees, the grass, the position of the sun in the sky above. The next time I saw the same tree stump next to an unmistakable patch of blue and purple wildflowers, a lump caught in my throat. In another few dozen steps, Johannes would come within view again, I knew. I looked up to make note of where exactly the sun was. I also, after only a slight hesitation, took my old rose quartz out of my pocket to make an additional, tangible reference point and gently set it down on the stump.

When I saw Johannes again, I deliberately took the only direction I hadn’t tried yet, now walking right past him to what should have been deeper into the forest. I made damn sure I was going straight and not making any weird turns. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time until I stepped out of view again.

The sun had moved, and even though I was actively paying attention for it this time, I still couldn’t have pinpointed when or how exactly it happened. I was going one way until…I wasn’t. It wasn’t that Johannes was repeatedly appearing in front of me. He hadn’t moved at all. I was the one who kept going back. I stopped when I got to the same stump again, picked up my quartz, and sat down.

Up until now, I had been quietly trying to convince myself that for every odd occurrence, there was probably some rational explanation I just didn’t have enough information on. The murders, Sarah’s disappearance—well, Johannes was clearly quite strong, and could also be stealthy when he wanted to be. The townspeople who’d ignored me—just a bunch of assholes who couldn’t be bothered to deal with one hapless, distressed tourist. My own lack of willpower to stand my ground and stay in the one place I might’ve eventually found help—just good old classic hypnosis, I guess. Individually, each rationalization could have _almost_ worked in my head…or, I could stop using skepticism as an excuse to keep kidding myself about what was really going on.

Footsteps at last, as I sat on that stump, rolling my quartz idly back and forth between my fingers. I looked up and watched Johannes make his way towards me. “How are you doing all this?” I asked softly once he came to a stop. My earlier frustrations, my resentment, my fears…I couldn’t hold onto them anymore in the face of this breathless wonder and want I was finally letting myself be open to. He did all of this _for me._

I should have felt monstrous. That meant people I knew were dead not because they’d done something to offend this man or violated some unknown sacred law of the land, but solely because _I_ had been with them. There would be even more death too, if anyone who came looking for missing tourists wandered too close to our cabin. Of course, there’ll undoubtedly be other offerings to make sometime in the future anyway, the next time he wants to create a powerful new spell or ask the universe for another big favor.

“Would you like to learn?” he asked me. The better question is, who the hell turns down an offer like that? I nodded, and Johannes smiled warmly down at me, offering a hand to help me stand up. We walked hand in hand all the way back to our cabin.

“I have so many terrible and wonderful things to show you, so many secrets to teach,” he muttered right into my ear as we stepped inside, letting his lips and beard both graze there and tickle just so I’d shiver and laugh.

“Tomorrow we’ll begin in earnest,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cross-posted [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/csb9q3/i_was_lost_in_a_german_forest_im_home_now_final/) on r/nosleep.


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